Thinking about this I've come to the conclusion that it's less likely with a Low Cost Carrier (e.g. easyJet) than a network carrier like British Airways. That said I think it's pretty rare these days.
Why?
An airline like BA generally speaking operate A-B-A or maybe A-B-C-B-A (I'm thiking of Australia here). Many of their routes are operated several times a day. If the bookings, in both directions A-B and B-A are low and if the next flight on the same route has sufficient seats to take everyone then a cancellation can occur and passengers are then reaccomodated on the later flight. But passengers are not the only consideration. There's a lot of freight moved in the belly of aircraft and it can be profitable to operate a flight with a very low passenger load factor if there is a good cargo load.
Low Cost Carriers like easyJet do have some planes that will fly from a base to a destination and straight back to base. However they also have aircraft that will start from a base, go to a destination, go to a 2nd and then 3rd destination and only then back to base. That's 4 flights and unless they are all empty cancelling them is probably not an option just because one of the flights in that sequence is empty.
There there's the Euopean Legislation effect see here
Delays and Cancellations | Resolving Travel Problems | Passengers which means court cases etc if they don't follow the rules. I think that helps to concentrate a few airline minds and probably reduces the number of cancellations for commercial reasons.